Hugo & Rose (6 page)

Rose supposed that was her fault. She had made them that way. When they were young they were so close together that it was just easier to bring two of everything; if one asked for juice, she'd fetch a second for the other. If one got a Tonka, she put a second in the other's hand.

For a moment, Rose fought with the image of both the boys' bodies lying on the pavement, their heads sporting identical cracks, leaking identical trails of blood and brain.

No. There was no way Isaac could have a bike.

*   *   *

Josh shouted when he came in, “Guys! I'm home!”

Rose ran heel-toe to the foyer, arms waving. “Are you crazy!” she hissed.

“But, it's nine thirty.”

“Exactly.”

Rose receded to the kitchen. Josh followed, his eyes trailing up the stairs toward his sleeping progeny.

“I thought you let them stay up on Fridays.”

“Tournament tomorrow. Hemsford.”

Josh made a face. “That's a hike.”

“I have to get them up at six. It's not going to be pretty.”

Josh quirked his mouth. A day in the sunshine watching his boys, talking to other dads. Seeing families be people and not next of kin. Sounded pretty great. “I wish I could go with you.”

Rose pursed her lips. Thought,
Me too.

But she didn't say it.

She didn't need to. There were a lot of things Josh and Rose didn't say to each other now. There was no reason. They both already knew the stifled complaints. He was never home. She was never interested. He was lonely. She was resentful.

Why talk about things they didn't have the energy to change? Someday it would, but not now. Right now it was better just to accept that the best their marriage could do was keep its head above the swells. Tread water and wait for the waves to carry it closer to shore.

Rose changed the subject. “Just in case Isaac tries to divide and conquer, he asked for a bicycle for his birthday.… It's not…” She trailed off, correcting, “Just don't get suckered into promising anything.”

“He's gonna be eight, Rosie.”

“If he gets one, Adam will start and I don't—”

“I see injuries all day and I think you're making more of this—”

Rose closed her eyes to him. Buried her face in her hands.

Her husband stopped talking. Stared at his wife. It was quiet for a moment as they both gauged the things they didn't want to say.

The dishwasher shifted cycles, grinding out a new pitch.

Finally, through her fingers, Rose's voice emerged. “Can we just … can we just … put a pin in this? All I want is for my day to end.”

Josh nodded. It was a pass. A near miss of a disagreement. “Yep. Sure. Got it.”

Ten minutes later, Josh was deep into the DVR's cache of
SportsCenter
and Rose was on her way to the island. They did not forget to kiss each other good night.

*   *   *

Their lives would have been simpler had Josh and Rose stopped loving each other. Or if their love had faded into the background, like so many other relationships—a remnant of the past, the reason for the present.

But Josh and Rose loved each other with a depth and breadth that surpassed the love they had before their children were born. To an outsider, witness to the facts of their marriage—the lack of sex, the disagreements, the absenteeism—this might not be obvious, but their love evidenced in the smaller truths that built the facts.

On most nights, almost without fail, after the kids were tucked into bed, Rose would catch Josh scrolling through his cell phone, scanning their retirement portfolio. It was a ritual that seemed to soothe him, so it never bothered Rose. It wasn't an act of greed, an obsessive concern over the accumulation of money.

Rose knew that, for Josh, it was an act of romance.

It was not numbers he saw in those expanding and contracting accounts, but a life lived with her. In them he saw the boys grown into men, Penny blooming into a younger version of his wife. The house they would one day be able to live in, the vacations they would one day be able to take. He saw Rose happy. He saw Rose relaxed, because there was finally enough of what they did not have now—money and time together.

Rose understood the numbers and columns were an affirmation to Josh that now was not all there would ever be. He would be reassured, as he pushed through long and difficult shifts, that there was a reason for all of it. Someday things would be different.

Josh's love for her shone through in his words and actions. It was there in his smile, when she'd catch him looking at her across the dinner table. It was in his eyes as they made love—his eyes, always open, always full of love and hope. His eyes, always on hers.

And it was this certitude, this intensity of his love, that worried her. It was the root of her avoidance, that even the slightest physical contact could lead to the intimacy he craved. Rose often worried he'd interpret her distance as a loss of affection. But the truth was far more complicated.

*   *   *

New lovers become old lovers. Their ways become practiced. In time they come to
see
less of each other, their minds wandering while their bodies couple.

But Josh had never stopped
seeing
Rose. He made love to her in the same way he had when their love was fresh—more practiced than he was then, an expert now in her body, but still the entire world eclipsed by
her
. Looking at her. Smelling her. Being with her.

Rose never wondered if he was thinking of someone else while they had sex … his eyes were wide and clear and hungry. There was no escaping them.

But Rose was terrified of being seen.

Josh had barely changed, but she had dissolved into a frumpy housewife, overweight, overtired. Sexless where she had once been sexy.

Each time they made love she thought surely this time he would finally realize she wasn't worthy of his worship. Surely, this time, he would realize he could find someone more beautiful to give his soul to.

Rose ached at the thought. She could not lose Josh.

But she also knew that she risked his loss by not letting him make love to her. So she parsed out sex to her husband, rationing it like a finite resource.

*   *   *

If they had stopped loving each other, they would have settled into a comfortable acceptance of their lives. If they had stopped loving each other, Josh's mind would have wandered while they fucked and Rose would have felt shielded from losing him. If they had stopped loving each other, Josh wouldn't have been so driven to protect their future together and he would have been able to be home more.

If they had stopped loving each other, it would have been easier.

*   *   *

Rose and Hugo spent her dream retrieving the Blanket Pavilion from the Natters nest. They had been resting inside when an avian shadow had suddenly painted itself on the ceiling of the tent. There was a screech and suddenly they were naked to the pearly sky of the island, watching the larger of the two Natters fly into the distance, white sheets trailing in his claws. Hugo and Rose had traveled to the reaches to get it back, climbing the bird-poop-stained peak to their nest. Both giant seabirds were there, beaks poking the fabric of the tent into the bed of their home.

“Why have they never laid any eggs?” whispered Rose, hiding beneath the lip of the nest.

“Because we never let them finish it.” Hugo winked and leaped into the bird's line of sight. “Hey, you, overgrown seagulls!”

The birds startled, their huge gray-tipped wings whipping the air. The female drew back her throat and released a shattering cackle, while the male snapped his beak at Hugo. He turned and began running down the side of the mountain.

Rose waited, holding her breath. For a while it seemed that only the male was going to follow him. The female had hung back, chattering and beating at the air.

The male pursued Hugo on foot, his razor-sharp beak pecking at the ground behind him. Hugo turned toward the bird and slipped on a patch of scree. His feet flew out from beneath him and suddenly he was sliding down the side of the mountain on an avalanche of gravel.

The male cried and launched himself into the air. In the nest, the female finally gave up holding back and took off, the air of her wings buffeting Rose's body.

Rose pulled herself up and made quick work of pulling the cloth of the Pavilion out of the branches and fallen trees that made up the nest. At the base of the mountain, she could make out Hugo rolling into a run and disappearing into the thick forest. The Natters pecked into the treetops after that, beating their wings and calling in frustration.

When they reunited on the beach, Hugo looked no worse for his tumble down the mountain. They spent a purple twilight eating seashells in the rebuilt Pavilion, their bodies cradled in radiating sand. Rose was content. She ran her hands down the smooth muscles of her arms, the gentle slope of her belly, her hair a glossy tumble on the sand.

“Are you happy, Rose?” Hugo asked, his eyes closed.

“Always.”

*   *   *

The rattle of the alarm pulled her into her bed.

Five
A.M.

Five-God-damn-
A.M.

Fuck soccer,
she thought.

But still Rose dressed. Padded downstairs. Evidence of Josh's evening lay around the house. An empty bag of chips on the coffee table. Crumbs on the countertop. An unrinsed plate by the sink.

Rose sighed and took care of it. She took care of everything.

That wasn't really true, she knew … but still she let herself think it while she sliced the oranges for Isaac's team's snack. She let the thought marinate while she loaded the bottles of water and sports drinks into the cooler, pouring the ice around their necks. She let thoughts of her own put-upon-ness wash over her while she hefted the coolers into the back of the minivan and packed a bag of snacks and sunscreen, toys to distract Penny, and changes of clothes for all.

Pen did not wake when Rose lifted her out of her crib. She cooed into her mother's neck and stayed asleep while Rose snapped her into her car seat, wrapping a blanket over her against the cold of the morning.

The boys she woke up. They stumbled sleepily down the stairs and out to the garage, climbing into their boosters and buckling themselves in. They were asleep again before Rose even started the car.

Rose checked her reflection in the rearview. Smoothed the frizz of her hair. She should have taken the time to shower last night. Should have gotten up earlier.

She exhaled.

Too late now,
she thought. Already behind, and only at the start of her day.

*   *   *

Adam woke with the sun in his eyes.

The sunlight poured through the windshield, flaring on the streaky glass, bouncing around the car. He closed his eyes against it, and it left dark bluish trails on the backs of his eyelids.

He squinted, putting his hand up. Zackie snored next to him, his mouth open, a line of drool shiny on his chin.

Zackie'd probably make fun of him if he saw Adam drooling.

Call him “drool baby” or something.

In the front of the car, Mom was quiet. One of her hands was on the flap thingy that folded down from the ceiling. She was leaning toward it, trying to keep the sun out of her eyes.

“Mom?”

Her hand jerked away from the wheel for a second and she gasped. Surprised.

“Sorry.”

Mom shook her head. “No. Kiddo. I'm sorry. I … I thought you were asleep.”

“I woke up.”

Mom smiled back at him in her “kid watching” mirror, her face all bulbous and round on its surface.

Adam rubbed his shoulder under his strap. Rocked a butt cheek to the side. He hated his booster.

Once when he and Isaac had been out with Daddy, they had bought a new barbecue to surprise Mom, but when it was time to go home there wasn't enough room for it in the back. Zackie and Addy had ended up waiting outside the van while Dad pulled out the seat with Zackie's booster on it to make room for the box.

And then Zackie got to ride home in the front seat, even though it was
very bad
and
unsafe
and all those other things they said. Adam had asked why he couldn't be up front and Dad had said it was because Isaac was older, which was unfair because Isaac was only eighteen months older, which wasn't much at all.

And then he said they shouldn't tell Mom because it would spoil her present.

So he didn't. Even though he wanted to.

Still, though …

“Can I come sit up with you?”

Mom was quiet for a second. Maybe there was a chance.

“Sorry, Addy. Not tall enough yet. It's not safe.”

Adam shrank a little bit.
Isaac hadn't been tall enough. Isaac still wasn't tall enough. But he had got to.

The car seemed to be quieter now, after there had been talking, than it had been before he had spoken. And something about Mom had changed since she found out he was awake. Like knowing had shut a door somewhere inside her.

“Mom?”

“Adam?” Mom used her “serious” voice. The kind she used when she was teasing them in a good way.

“Can you tell me what you dreamed about Hugo last night?”

“Why do you always ask me to tell you about Hugo?”

Adam liked to hear about Hugo. He liked to think about what had happened on the island. He had lots of reasons why he always asked about it … but he decided to tell her the best reason. He knew the right word for it, too.
A compliment
. He was going to give Mommy a compliment.

“Because you look pretty when you talk about him.”

Mom didn't say anything after that at all. She just got all the way quiet, like someone had locked the closed door inside her.

*   *   *

Rose had to search for parking among the vans and wagons—the practical family movers with their decals of stick-figure relations, stickers for karate, and a dozen varieties of awareness ribbons.